Pedestrian single file movement on stairway: Investigating the impact of stair configuration on pedestrian ascent and descent fundamental diagram

Abstract

Abstract Due to the individuals’ interactions with the physical environment, pedestrian walking on various stair-facilities may present different features. Performing controlled pedestrian experiments have been regarded as a reliable data provision approach in this field. With this method, a series of pedestrian single-file experiments on specific stair configurations has been organized. Based on the individual’s trajectories information extracted from eight well-structured stair scenarios, this study investigates a range of questions concerning the effects of stair geometry on pedestrian locomotion properties. This including the influence of stair tread depth, riser height and stair slope as well as pedestrian dynamics on micro and macro levels. Our analysis indicated that there is a unified behavioral mechanism between pedestrian single-file movement on horizontal plane and stairs, i.e., the two regimes of speed-headway relationship. Besides, our analysis displayed those pedestrian characteristics, i.e., free movement speed and free movement headway varies as a result of different stair configurations. Therefore, we developed a linear regression model that predicts the free walking speed based on tread depth and riser height of the stair. Our results also indicated the significant effect of stair gradient on pedestrian density-specific flow relation on stairs by the microscope fundamental diagram method. We found the data point of density-specific flow for pedestrians almost has the same shape despite their walking in different facilities. The data and findings could contribute to the design of large buildings or stations, upgrade and enhance microscope pedestrian simulation models to provide more reality outputs of the human walking on stairs.